Four in Five
by labyrinthine
Summary: And you'll live. And you'll live. And you'll live.


Title: Four in Five  
  
Author: labyrinthine  
  
E-mail: elabyrinthine@yahoo.com  
  
Summary: And you'll live. And you'll live. And you'll live.  
  
Rating/Classification: R/missing scene 2x1, Will POV  
  
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.  
  
A/N: I missed Will. Missed him for more reasons than I thought, and now he's back, and I'm happy, and I'm writing. And that's enough for me. Thanks to Hil for no reason whatsoever aside from being you, Jada and Pharo for someone to chat with after the ep, and Chuck Palahniuk for writing such a screwy novels. 10:03 - 12:19am (I couldn't stop myself, ergo no beta, but the tense switching is intentional if anyone cares).  
  
*****  
  
Our strength is often composed of the weakness we're damned if we're going to show. -Mignon McLaughlin  
  
*****  
  
I didn't park in the staff lot. I had a spot reserved for me, finally; all of the senior newsroom writers had a spot reserved for them and after I got that nomination the paper was quick to give me a little stall of concrete and asphalt with "Will Tippin, Features" on a dingy white aluminum sign. The big time, or so I was told.  
  
The sign was gone. Nothing in its place, yet, but it wouldn't be long until they found some other journalist who was deserving in their eyes of the glory and prestige that was an assigned stall on the first floor of the parking deck.  
  
The sign was gone, and now it was my turn to leave. Didn't take them very long.  
  
It could be worse, considering. I parked out of the way, in the visitor's section. It had been intentionally neglected for a much-needed repaving a few years back so to discourage visitors from dropping by, since no one wanted to ruin their tires driving on loose gravel or risk their car being exposed where security rarely visited. Not exactly glamorous, but it wasn't like I was all that much to look at either.  
  
I sat for a while, the windows rolled up with the car starting to heat, working up the nerve to go inside and get it over with. I did an article on that, once, the greenhouse effect. A special interest piece, after some fucking idiot left his windows rolled up with his dog inside for too long. Trying to explain to the uneducated masses why that was a bad move.  
  
And look what the uneducated masses have done in return.  
  
Ok, that could be rephrased. Look what I've done to myself. Look what I'm about to do in response to that.  
  
No, that didn't sound any better.  
  
Get out of the car, Tippin. Get out of the car, walk into that office, pack up your shit and leave. It wasn't that hard - carrying a cardboard box down two flights of stairs was most definitely NOT the most strenuous thing you'd had to do the past week.  
  
Didn't make it any easier.  
  
I got out, finally. My steps were still uneven; too long tied to chairs, sitting in planes, lying on hospital stretchers. The headache that never budged didn't help matters any, and with the sun shining at full force, it wasn't much of an act to take on the gait of a three-year druggie in withdrawal.  
  
God. You did an article on that too, once; followed this poor shumck out of some halfway house, it was supposed to be this sensitive piece on a man readjusting to society.  
  
The guy killed himself two weeks out. The story never ran.  
  
And you'll never have another story run. Fitting.  
  
The lot was empty as I made my way to the front door. Maybe the first time in days I was out in the open with no audience hanging on my every word. Like a death march, shoes irregularly crunching on loose gravel as I tread towards my sacrifice for the Greater Good. So what if the Greater Good meant confessing as a heroin addict, losing your job, lying through your teeth.  
  
One less tooth, now.  
  
The front of the building had these giant glass-paned walls, ostentatiously to give the appearance that there were no secrets inside, or something. They were usually mucked up with little kids and their sticky hands getting all over them, but with the light reflecting off their surface it looked like someone had just come by and wiped them down. Perfect. All the better for one to see the main receptionist's eyes bulge out and get on the phone with her gossip circle when she saw you approach.  
  
I didn't even glance in her direction as I made my way through the atrium towards the newsroom. I could see her, out of the corner of my one decent eye, half getting up out of her chair, creeping up behind me. Keeping a distance of course, because who knows what I've been exposed to, better not get too close. What a tool.  
  
It was halfway up the second flight of stairs that I realized I forgot to bring a box with me. All this time, telling myself I was Leaving, I was Packing Up, and it never dawned on me to bring the quintessential Packing Up box along. I would have to stop in the copy room now, find some empty machine paper cardboard box and haul it after me when I hit the newsroom. Just great.  
  
I leaned against the cinderblock wall opposite the stairwell door, out of breath. I had used up a year's supply of adrenaline in a matter of days, and besides, ex-druggies were supposed to be unstable and not at full strength. It hadn't dawned on you to take the elevator - they made you uncomfortable, trapped, confined, these days. I needed open space, a view outside, an exit door. I hoped this feeling would pass, given time.  
  
I wrote a piece on this too, a year ago, about the number of layoffs and how the economy had to deal with more of the workforce now unemployed. How shrinks had seen their practices shoot out the roof with middle aged workers out of a job looking for answers.  
  
Welcome to the world of unemployment. Would you like a cookie?  
  
Haul it, Tippin. There was a box, nearly empty, sitting neglected outside the door, a little banged up and ripped at the edges but it would do. I picked it up, took a breath, opened the door. Made my grand entrance.  
  
I never heard the room so quiet before. It wasn't worth considering how many eyes were focused on my body, moving with a shuffled limp towards my desk in the far corner. Pairs of eyes, actually. Twice as many.  
  
I could *feel* their questions boring through my skin. They wanted to know my story, my secrets, like a cat with a mouse, not letting go, beating it to death. Half of them never gave me the time of day, the other half feigned nice when they needed a background check or reference looked up. You could do without them.  
  
Could you do without the job?  
  
It took painfully few seconds to sweep the crap off my desk into the box. I took it all - receipts, wrappers, broken pencils with no eraser. Minutia. This crap was mine, but it was my life, and I wasn't about to dump a single thing into the trash at this point. I didn't look up, I didn't acknowledge the few that got up from their desks, made half-assed attempts to approach me.  
  
They were scared. They were actually scared of me. Of what I represented. They had no idea why Will Tippin, award-winning journalist, would crack, reach for a needle and shoot up. They thought I was a loose canon, but they were afraid it could happen to them.  
  
You never know, after all. It can always get worse.  
  
Anne was there, in the corner, her face showing the only genuine emotion in the room. I saw her as I let my eyes sweep the room one last time, held her gaze, and looked away. You wanted to tell her it was not her fault, since it was obvious from this far away she thought she was in some way responsible. For getting your article printed. For having it drive you over the edge, maybe. You wanted to tell her it was all a big snafu, she had done nothing wrong, maybe they could laugh about it over a beer sometime. I would have said these things to her, given her a hug goodbye or something, but my jaw was locked up tense and my shoulders still hurt when I moved them. Better to focus, now. I could write her later, it would be more appropriate.  
  
I did an article on survivor guilt, a while ago, after there was a train derailment and the front cars fell over a cliff while the caboose stayed on the tracks. A horrible accident, with a lot of causalities. People who had stepped out of their assigned traincar to the caboose to take in the view were now alive, supposed to be dead, all because of chance timing. It wasn't a very good article; I still felt young and invincible, riding on my assignment on staff for a big time paper. I could see it, now. I knew better than that, now.  
  
No more articles, no more bylines, no more reporting.  
  
No more truth. Or maybe too much truth.  
  
I don't remember leaving the newsroom, carrying the box down two flights of stairs, stepping back into the sun outside and throwing it all in my trunk. I don't remember starting the ignition, jumping on the interstate, pulling into the driveway. Though I'm sure I did all of these things.  
  
The throwing up afterwards, that I remember.  
  
And maybe it is better to forget, for a little while. I don't know how Syd does it, day in and day out, the deception and the lies. I don't know how I'll do it, in a hour or a day or a year. All I know is that last week, I was a journalist on the brink of something big, huge even, and now all I have is a cardboard box in the trunk. At least it's a start.  
  
It could have been worse. So easily, it could have been worse. One in five. But you're not one in five, you're four in five, and damned if you let anyone have the last word but you. You can live without another byline, another briefing, another article. How, I have no clue. But you can pick it up, start over, and live.  
  
And you'll live. And you'll live. And you'll live.  
  
*****  
  
Four in Five  
  
elabyrinthine@yahoo.com 


End file.
